Well...

HDD = no dropouts too.
AND no switching cards
AND low (relative) cost
AND edit on the disk, if you wish, without transfering to another HDD
ALSO you don't need to have something else on set to copy the data across from so you can re-use the P2 cards (unless you've got hours of P2 cards, in which case you shoulda probably bought an F-900 with all your spare cash!).

The only real downside is extra size and weight on the camera or an extra cable to wrangle. I, for one, would go for the HDD option every time at current pricing - assuming it was possible.

I have a great solution for portable storage:
http://images.apple.com/ipod/u2/imag...se10262004.jpg

http://millimeter.com/mag/video_ipod_hd/

I am thinking seriously about this. It is extremely compact and durable. I am guessing we could even get some utilities written for one of these babies.

gl/ Art and Motion

The iPod form factor is perfect and I'd be willing to bet that someone has already written software for loading video. The downside is you would be paying a high price for features that you presumably wouldn't use and you'd only be getting 60 Mb max storage, when in fact, you might want 5 to 10 times that amount. I still have hopes that the folks at MCE will get their act together and make a reliable QuickStream. It has everything I could want - light, tough, attachable - and God knows the price is right.

http://www.mcetech.com/quickstreamdv.html

One thing I did confirm is that you can directly transfer files from the P2 card to an off-the-shelf USB2 hard disk, with no need for a laptop or a P2 Store or anything like that. You plug the drive right into the camera and tell it to dub the cards over to the drive.

So while a FireStore would be one way to get streaming direct-to-disk capture, it may not be the only way -- there are many companies in the "P2 Partners" program. And who knows what Focus may come up with -- a traditional FireStore might not be the only thing. They may come up with some sort of intermediary hard drive controller thing that would accept off-the-shelf hard disks, and provide whatever circuitry/buffering/controls may be necessary.

And, there are several months to go before the camera comes out, so it may very well offer direct-to-disk recording as well. But even if it doesn't, you can still use off-the-shelf hard disks to offload the cards to. It can control an external hard disk, the question seems to be whether it can implement a 100-megabit streaming solution to one of those drives. The FireStore, for example, can only handle 40 megabits per second.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted a HDD that slipped into the tape compartment and somehow connected when closing the door. That way you save the space. Guess that won't happen, but I can keep dreaming.


Aza

Aaron: in theory that should be possible with 2.5" harddisks and a custom
"case" to fit them in. I can't imagine that would be too hard to engineer.

I have to say I'm now extremely sceptical about this now. All this talk of "Panasonic techs streaming to an iPod" seems to have come from an experiment that BlackMagic design did playing BACK from (not recording to) an iPod, nothing to do with Panasonic other than by coincidence they happened to utilise the DVCproHD codec.

I think the answer for those wanting >1 hour runtimes (or even >8 minutes) will be firestore type devices rather than off the shelf HDs. Right now one of those costs what a P2 8GB card. Should they get such a time running with the HVX, I'd rather have one of those bundled with a HVX than 2 P2 cards.

The best workfow would probably to record to a single 8gb P2 card. Then dump the footage down to a drive each time you are happy with the shots, wipe the P2, and fill up again, rinse and repeat.

I wonder if, just like with all memory cartridges, it will be long before other companies start offering 'P2 Compatible' cartridges, at half the price.

No, that's not what everyone is talking about. Noah Kadner spoke with Panasonic engineers that recorded directly to several HDDs, including an iPod, with a prototype HVX200. However, there are some issues that Panny has to resolve before implementing this feature. There are questions about the diversity of HDDs out there and other technical issues. I think that unless they feel they've got a very solid implementation, they'll leave off this feature. Panny isn't promising anything, but it's not off the table either--so they're working on it.

Jan's already stated that Panny will license P2 to other companies--so yes, expect to see non-Panny P2 cards. Hopefully, the licensing fees will be reasonable.

Ah that's great news. That's a sure-fire way to make sure that P2 sticks around.

Excuse my skepticism, but . . .

Does this direct to GENERIC firewire hard drive recording exist on any camera right now?

The firestore hard drives work because they have software that recognizes the data stream and creates the appropriate files on the hard drive, the camera doesn't have to do anything special.

For a generic firewire hard-drive it would be a bit more complicated; for example, the camera would have to go into different I/O modes based on whether it was connected to a firewire hard drive or to a computer (or TV w/ firewire). It would also have to know about file systems, etc. The firewire port on almost every camera just outputs a raw data stream and depends on software (on the computer or TV) to detect the stream and start capturing/playing.

Not saying it is impossible, but given a) the fact they are already working with Firestore, and b) that they have such a large investment in P2 technology, it seems unlikely that they would support generic firewire hard drives. Hope I'm wrong though.

Ben

P.S. What is the sustained data rate on the inexpensive small firewire hard drives? Is it enough to support DVC PRO HD (100 Mbps, roughly 13 MB/s) without dropped frames?

Well, this camera is a slightly different beast than most anything else on the market right now...

It's already encoding the footage into MXF files to place on the P2 cards... so why can't it send that data stream over the firewire or USB port to a harddrive, just like transfering files from harddrive to harddrive, or USB drive to SATA drive or whatever... in fact, when you use the P2 cards in camer and hook the cam up via firewire and/or USB, the computer supposedly will see the camera as a hdd or other storage device...

So I think it's fairly likely that Panasonic CAN make this work... it's just a matter of do they WANT to...

Actually it wouldn't be difficult at all. Both the Firewire and USB specifications have full support for storage devices, including various standard file system protocols. There are plenty of USB and Firewire devices in this world that talk to off-the-shelf USB/firewire hard drives right out of the box, including network routers, print servers, video conferencing systems, phone/PBX systems, etc..

There are several 2.5" drives on the market that have sufficeint data rates to handle the full 13MB/sec with a little head room. Most of the mainstream 5400 and 7200 rpm drives with 8GB (or larger) buffers these days will do this.

I am skeptical about Panasonic actually supporting this ability though... Supporting direct recording to HDD would really cut into their push for P2 cards and it would also cut third party licensee partners out of the picture (like Firestore).

I think the only reason that Panasonic will go ahead and consider adding this ability is to keep up with the JVC HD100 which will have an internal hard drive option. However, I'm not going to hold my breath on this...

Not to nitpick or anything, but the JVC cam will be using a firestore device designed for JVC, just like the 5000 did (I believe it was the 5000, wasn't it?), not an internal harddrive.

It's already confirmed that the HVX200 will be able to dump files from the P2 cards directly to off-the-shelf hard drives plugged into the camera. That's confirmed. So the HVX200 already has the ability to act as a HDD controller. As Jeff mentioned, many currently shipping drives will be able to handle the data stream. I think there's some concern on Panasonic's part regarding the variety of devices that might be plugged in and how to support this feature. For instance, an iPod might be able to handle the DVCPRO50 stream and only *some* of the smaller HD streams. So naturally, you'll have users trying to shoot all day in 1080 30P with their first generation iPods and cursing Panasonic's name. Maybe they can include it as an "undocumented feature".

Barry, where is this confirmed? Not saying it's not true, but I'd like to hear it from a Panasonic rep myself.

Aaron

I'm not sure I get it (or maybe it's that others aren't) but why do we need to worry about a HD being fast enough to handle the HD stream. It's data. I don't want to edit from my iPod. I just want a place to put the data (video) so I can free up a P2 card. If it takes a little longer because it's a slower harddrive, fine.

It seems to me unless Panasonic does something to actually disable this function, it should be easy. It's just transferring a file from one harddrive (P2) to another (external harddrive, iPod, whatever).

Am I oversimplifying this?

KW

I spent three hours with Jan and Phil Livingston, going through every aspect of the camera that I could, and verifying the workflow in every possible way. They told me that the dub feature allows you to dub the contents of the P2 card over to either tape (which would involve downrezzing to DV) or over to a hard disk, and that's what the SPB2 protocol is for. The camera supports both AVC and SPB2, AVC is the protocol used when a camera and deck are talking to each other, SPB2 is the protocol used for file transfer. When using SPB2, you can transfer files directly off of the P2 card to a USB2 hard disk.

Ahh OK. I think I misread, I was reading it as "realtime" capture to HD.
That's still up in the air right?


Aaron

There are conflicting reports on that. Noah talked to some engineers who apparently said that yes, it could capture directly to hard disk (unless I misunderstood his report). When I talked to the product manager, it was made clear that definitely it will be able to dub to hard disk, but as to whether it can capture directly to it, there are issues that need to be sorted out. They definitely know we want it, but it may not be practical to implement it. Fortunately for us, this is one of those areas where the long lead time before introduction may work in our (the consumer's) favor, as there's plenty of time to hopefully sort through the issues and come up with a rock-solid, reliable way to guarantee the footage.

Like someone else said, I'm sure there will be people who try to plug an ipod in there, and then when it only sort of works and mostly fails, they'll scream and cry (and I'm sure some will try to sue Panasonic over it). Even the FireStore only supports 40mbps sustained capture rates, so there are issues that need to be resolved. 3.5" drives can sustain the capture rates easily, but they're big and unwieldly and not designed for portability. So there are apparently a lot of issues, and some pretty smart engineers at work on the problem, so I'm hoping that it will indeed do direct capture to off-the-shelf USB hard disks, but at this time the reality is, that particular aspect can't be confirmed.

Why hasn't Panny considered using the new blue ray DVD burner for a record medium? 23 gigs (and some change) on a Disc would be a lot cheaper than the flash cards.

Could it be that- the blue ray DVD is Sony technology, and they aren't sharing?

Or the data rate isnt fast enough for the camera (although some newer cameras -IMX etc. are using it).

With Moore's law and all, it'll be a long wait until I can afford those flash cards.

Jeff Patnaude

Just musing here, but if one of the issues is buffer overruns with slower hard drives, maybe they could utilize the the on-board SD card. The SD card is designed for storing scene files, but what if you loaded a 1GB or 2 GB SD card? It would be interesting if that SD memory could be used to buffer the datastream going to the hard drive. Of course the camera may already be hardwired so that's impossible, but that SD slot is sort of interesting to me.

No reason it couldn't record/buffer to the P2 card and then stream to the HDD. Seems like a natural extension given some of the other pre-record and loop record features already announced. IMO, if Panasonic chooses to not allow recording of the video to HDD (only the ability to offload P2 data to a drive), then it won't be for any real technical reasons, but rather for business motivated reasons on their end to satisfy their P2 push and/or their licensed partners bringing companion products.

Then that just makes the P2 card an expensive buffer and defeats the purpose of wanting to record to cheap, off the shelf, HDD's.

Not necessarily. It would still eliminate off-loading time, allow you to only use (read: buy) one P2 card, and helps allow you to use the camera in long take scenarios such as performances, weddings, or documentary shooting.

BTW Jesse, I tried to email/IM you here, but you've got your accept emails turned off in the user CP. I was actually going to offer you my help.

Yikes! I'll turn that on!

...my email is phatkodiak at aol.com

I'm free on the weekends right now, and my semester is over in 2 weeks (freeing up more days).

I spoke to Jan at length yesterday about real time video streams over Firewire. She said they all would be present on Firewire and any capture app that supported DVCPROHD could capture the stream to hard disk. So, use of a laptop is a possibility. Focus Enhancements and Jan told me they were discussing a portable; however, the FS-4 drives don't have the horsepower yet to manage the data stream plus they would have to design the electronics to support the codec. Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap.

Which is why I've already emailed Focus Enhancements and told them my opinion... PLEASE SUPPORT IT!

"Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap."

Now that is nutty to me. Support for the JVC would be worth doing some research as it might be a harder sell. But EVERYONE is talking about the HVX200. This does not require research, they should be all over it. Even loyal Vegas users, who I'm one of and can attest to how aggresively loyal we can be, are all up in arms b/c Sony owns Vegas now and it's not clear if DVCPro HD is ever going to happen for us. Scores of Vegas users are now ready to jump ship to FCP to be able to use this camera. Never thought I'd see the day, but b/c Vegas is so in bed with HDV...

Why not just chnage to Avid Xpress Pro instead of FCP? At least they wouldn't need to change plataforms.

i dont understand what the panic is all about.. :(

eventually units like this

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

will come with PCMCIA adapters to plug straight into a laptop and run as an external drive, these same plug (adapated PCMCIA) , could theoretically be used as a mobile storage device.. personally id prefer to record to P2, and xfer to a lapto.. at least id be able to see my clips and make sure that i didnt have a HDD failure.. all these mobile HDD units seem to be having issues..

PCMCIA to IDE
 

PCMCIA to IDE adapters do exist, I dont see any reason why we couldn't trick the camera into thinking that a 250 gig ide/ata hard drive is a P2 card, they're both simple storage devices, the camera has firmware which is automating the file writing process to the P2 card.

sports car runs on rocket fuel
 

has anyone used the ol' car analogy yet? panasonic has introduced a powerful new sports car at an affordable price. only problem is instead of running on premium unleaded, it runs on a special rocket fuel that only panasonic "gas stations" sell for now. the fuel is scarce and about 1/5 the price of the car. yes the fuel is reusable but you can only travel about 20 miles before you need to refill.

not sure where i'm going with this but it doesn't seem panasonic knows where they're going either. they introduce a prosumer camera but alienate most of their prosumer market by rushing to get out their camera that requires superfast p2 cards. but at a maximum of 100mbps data rate, why would dvcprohd require p2's 640mbps? why wouldn't any 7200rpm or even 5400rpm 2.5" hdd work at this sustained rate? how does jvc offer this option on their new hd prosumer cam? is their data rate that much different? just asking some questions that i haven't seen answered yet.

This has been debated ad infinitum -- it's getting up there with the "mac vs. PC" or "video vs. film" threads as far as overdone...

Here's the answers, all in one place, so hopefully everyone can see this and not be confused about it:

Panasonic is trying to sell cameras. They have made the camera do things that no other camera in this price class can do. They have been able to do that by offering P2 recording, and not recording to tape. Why not record to tape? A DVCPRO50 deck would add about $7,000 to the cost -- and still wouldn't record HD. A DVCPRO-HD deck would add $15,000 to the cost -- just for the deck mechanism. Panasonic has instead brought DVCPRO-HD to the market in a camera that costs less than $6,000.

But you have to buy a card. Or do you? For those who complain about the P2 price, please keep in mind that a) you don't ever really have to buy a P2 card if you don't want to, and b) there may be many alternatives to P2.

For those who are enamored with hard disks, Focus is building a FireStore that will work with the camera. Using that, you would never have to buy a P2 card, and you could still use the full HD capabilities.

Or, if you can stand being chained to a laptop or desktop via firewire, you can use the camera out of the box and record HD straight to the computer, without having any P2 cards at all.

Or, several efforts are underway to determine the feasibility of P2 alternatives -- perhaps a Sandisk Extreme III compactflash card mounted in a PCMCIA adapter will work. Others are talking about using PCMCIA firewire adapters or PCMCIA USB2 adapters. Others are talking about the next generations of MicroDrives.

Also, Panasonic has no intention of having any sort of "monopoly" on P2 cards. They've licensed their SD memory card technology so widely that there are now 700 companies making their own SD cards, or products to go with them. You can bet that you'll see P2 cards from PNY, SanDisk, Kingston, Lexar, basically anyone that makes memory cards.

And, the part that people really seem to not get -- you don't buy lots of P2 cards. You buy one, or maybe two. Maybe if you're really, really gonzo about it, you'll buy three. And that's it. For the rest of the camera's life. It's not like tape or disc or other disposable media. P2 is more like the RAM in the camera, like a part of the camera. It is not media that you hand over to the client.

And, even if you get just one P2 card, you can plug in a hard disk and dub the contents of the P2 card over to a cheap off-the-shelf USB2 drive whenever you want. No other camera can do that. You could dub your footage onto a hard disk that actually costs *less* than a DVCPRO-HD tape does!

If you really want to record to hard disk, you can. P2 cards are faster, more reliable, more rugged, more shockproof, more environmental-proof -- in fact, they're superior to hard disk in every way except one: cost per gigabyte. A hard disk is a far inferior product in all ways except one: it's cheap. So the solution is, shoot to card, dub to hard disk.

If you want to shoot to hard disk, go ahead -- get a FireStore. Panasonic recruited them to be a partner specifically for this purpose.

Please, let's put a rest to the "Panasonic's extorting big money from us for P2 card" conspiracy theory. Competition and licensing will drive P2 cards to rock bottom prices. And there are plenty of alternatives, now and forthcoming, that make it such that you may never need a p2 card at all, if you choose to do without it.

Barry, you wrote a great summary of all the posts and arguments of the last couple of weeks - you must have been taking notes!

I didn't understand that one sentence though. In what ways wold an HD be "far inferior"?

Yes, in many ways a hard drive is "inferior" to P2 cards in as much
as they are not nearly as robust, nor reliable as memory. This might not be an issue when it comes to most hard drive applications, but when the drive holds what is now the camera original data then one had better think long and hard about dependability and back up. Other than that they seem a very viable option!

All true, but here's the pinch. Where is all my incredibly valuable footage archived? Oh, it's on an HDD, isn't it??? The data's only on the P2 card for about 20 mins.

I did a degree in computer science at UCL when I was a lad - and I'll tell you this much, I don't trust solid state systems as far as i can p*ss... I'll keep my tape backups, thank you very much!

It doesn't look like a new Panny for me :( Oh well...